


Sharpe's Gift

by InkSiren



Series: Sharpe's Fanfic [21]
Category: Sharpe (TV), Sharpe - All Media Types
Genre: Cuddling, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Heartbeats, Hearts, Light Flirting, Light Romance, Missing Scene, Tag for Sharpe's Gold
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-16 02:27:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29074794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InkSiren/pseuds/InkSiren
Summary: Ellie values the trust Richard has put in her, even if he doesn't think much of it.
Series: Sharpe's Fanfic [21]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2034673
Kudos: 5





	Sharpe's Gift

“Do you know, Richard, that I can hear your heart beating?”

There’s a soft huff and a breath that moves Ellie’s hair, and she can feel the amusement rumble in his voice. 

“I’m relieved. I had hoped the bugger might still be at it.”

She smiles sadly, but she does not move her head, and she does not laugh. “I meant the question seriously,” she says, hand resting against his chest. He’s warm, too. Extremely so. 

There’s silence for a few moments and then a gentle hand in her hair. “I don’t quite know what you’re asking, love,” he confesses.

“Do you know,” she says, picking her head up then to look into his pretty green eyes. “Do you realize it when you let someone be near like this?” 

He looks back with a soft puzzlement tinted with worry, and his hand cups her jaw. “Are you thinking about that soldier again, lass?” he asks softly. 

She drops her gaze, putting her head back onto his chest with an almost aggressive movement that makes him grunt, but he wisely doesn’t protest. 

“Boy. And I wasn’t,” she says eventually. “I was thinking about you, and the soldier’s trim on your rifleman’s jacket, and how you’re paid to risk being killed young. And I was thinking,” she continues, very carefully undoing one button. Sharpe breathes in shallowly and his heartbeat gets faster, but she continues on to the next and the next and still another until she can slip her hand inside. His pulse is a rapid pace against her palm now, and she smiles a little at the reaction.

“Breathe, Richard,” she reminds him, and he does. “I was thinking about how you’re really trusting me very much right now.”

His heartbeat slows gradually, and she can feel him shift, resting a hand on her back. 

“Well, you haven’t given me a reason not to,” he says like a nervous excuse. “And it weren’t like you have a knife to my throat.”

“No, but enough people want you dead that I wouldn’t blame you at all should you not trust enough to sleep close to someone ever again. In a world away from all this we forget so easily how vulnerable we truly are. It...it takes so little to end someone’s life...”

Sharpe hums under her ear, and she hopes her fingertips memorize the pulse beneath them so even when she eventually has to let go the sensation lingers. 

Lingers beyond the grit of gunpowder and the smooth stillness of a stock. 

“Be a miserable life, never to share it with anyone again,” Sharpe muses, and she cannot say she disagrees with him.

“All the same, I want you to know I count it as a gift. You trusting me enough to allow me not only to touch you, but to feel the very life at work inside.” 

She’s still for a while, save for the fingers tracing across ribs, and she feels Richard stroke her hair as they sit in a strange kind of silence where he is quiet in every way but the one he can help. 

After a while, she feels a little bolder and she shifts herself slowly up. Their eyes meet briefly and then she bows her head to kiss the side of his jaw. When he doesn’t move, she rests delicate fingers at the notch in his throat and presses an even gentler kiss against the artery. 

She lingers there, and she feels him swallow. 

“Lass,” he says, and it’s part husky, part whine. 

“Sorry,” she says, only partially meaning it, and smiles again as she returns to using him as a pillow. She gives him another few moments to calm down.

“You’re beautiful, Richard,” she whispers into his jacket at last. “Your heartbeat is beautiful, and I am grateful to have heard it.”

He says nothing to that, only wraps another arm around her.

He doesn’t need to say anything.


End file.
